29 Dec 2010

Fiji sugar industry woes seen as legacy of dirty politics

2:39 pm on 29 December 2010

Fiji's interim government says problems faced by the sugar industry could have been solved 20 years ago if past governments had not been negligent.

The Permanent Secretary for Sugar, Manasa Vaniqi, says the regime is now shouldering extra expenses and a huge debt.

Manasa Vaniqi has told FBC News that cane planting programmes were a failure, which he attributes to dirty politicians and racism.

He says the sugar industry is now faced with a bigger problem of trying to upgrade the sugar mills while having big debts to pay.